


the ghosts that haunt your building

by loamvoza



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu | Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War
Genre: Other, canon-typical violence is mentioned, it's post battle of belhalla and everyone you love is dead, the relationships are minor but they're still there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 13:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18447740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loamvoza/pseuds/loamvoza
Summary: they do not love each other.but they hold each other on the long nights.





	the ghosts that haunt your building

**Author's Note:**

> some of this might not be canon compliant. or it might just be downright incorrect. i still haven't played past chapter two of fe4 and all of my knowledge past that point comes from heroes or briefly skimming wikis. if anything's wrong you can just call it an AU. okay? okay.
> 
> i wrote this in 24 hours and had no one read over it because i like to publish things without thinking too hard
> 
> the title is from the young thousands by the mountain goats
> 
> enjoy

he is not the same after the battle of belhalla.

his skin doesn’t fit right. his memory is hazy. everything burns.

his smiles never quite reach his eyes anymore.

 

he knows, of course, that he is not entirely himself.

 

after all, he remembers dying.

he remembers feeling the life leave his lungs.

he remembers dying beside his beloved.

he remembers the pain. (oh, gods, the pain.)

 

the body he’s owned hasn’t been entirely his for quite some time.

 

forseti uses him as a puppet.

 

lewyn cares not anymore. he is still conscious somewhere deep within, but he controls little. he is living his postmortem life in a corpse on cruise control. (he isn’t upset with this decision. it is only fair. that’s what he tells himself, anyway, in his brief times of lucidity. it makes hearing them call this long-dead dragon of legend by his own name somehow less painful.)

 

he only wishes that his beloved were here beside him.

sweet jamke died beside him. protecting him.

he was always self-sacrificial, that one.

he had sworn against lewyn’s lips the night previous to the march that if he had to die protecting lewyn, he would, and he would have no regrets. it makes lewyn’s heart skip to think about it now. he only wishes that the two of them could be together in death like they were meant to be. instead, he is here, floating around in the brain of his corpse, unhappy and unloved.

 

the lance slid through jamke’s abdomen like butter.

the choking noise, the drooling of blood, and the collapse.

lewyn remembers the sounds of his beloved’s flesh tearing.

he wishes he didn’t. he wishes that forseti had let him stay dead, die happy, instead of putting him through another senseless war with the children of the very soldiers he’d fought beside.

 

little seliph is all grown and commanding the army himself, with the same promises of peace his father had given so many years ago. (he is all of his mother’s softness and all of his father’s determination. lewyn finds himself proud of the man seliph grew into. he knows that sigurd would be proud of him too.)

 

the only one lewyn finds himself able to find comfort in is finn.

 

finn, the boy of fifteen that he barely remembers. quan and ethlyn’s beloved, loyal to the last. he had taken the children born and fled before the battle of belhalla with the instruction to keep them safe. (and keep them safe he had; he returns to join the army all of these years later with a grown boy and girl. they are seliph’s age and welcomed into the army with open arms. lewyn is glad. forseti is unresponsive.)

 

they had not spoken much during lewyn’s former true lucidity, but he seeks finn out as often as he is allowed.

 

the light has left finn’s eyes.

he has the look of a child forced to grow far too young.

he does not laugh, or smile, or cry.

he is cold, and calculated, and all the same blues in both personality and appearance.

 

his children, the ones he had come with (leif and nanna, lewyn learns) remark to their cousin that their father has been like this for as long as they can remember. it is not abnormal to them. their father does not show emotion, and that is how it is. seliph seems caught off guard, but he says nothing. he is too compassionate a soul, lewyn thinks. this is war. war changes people. seeing everyone you’ve ever loved slain changes people.

 

(lewyn cannot tell if these thoughts are his own or forseti’s, but they aren’t wrong.)

 

lewyn finds solace in finn.

he too can no longer do any of those things.

he cannot laugh, he cannot smile, he cannot cry.

forseti doesn’t let him, and forseti will never allow him to again.

 

his body belongs to the crusader.

finn’s body belongs to his memories of war.

 

finn is not jamke, but lewyn takes his hands on the long nights.

and lewyn is not quan, nor is he ethlyn, but finn allows his hands to be taken.

 

they understand each other.

 

they still see each other as scared children. the same scared children fighting a war as they had been twenty years ago. they _are_ the same scared children, just viewing each other through different eyes. finn’s glassed over from anguish of loss, lewyn just a little too far away from his own to greet his old acquaintance proper.

 

they do not love each other.

 

(lewyn does not want to love again.

until forseti lets this damned mortal vessel die, it’s heart will belong to jamke. he was lewyn’s beloved for a reason — broad and strong, sweet, gentle, formal. perfect. it hurts whatever bits of lewyn’s heart that remain his to think about him now.

 

finn cannot love again.

once so full with love as he strode between his lord and lady, he had seen his happiness crushed and his responsibilities double before he had even come of age. he held the heavy heart of a man not allowed to grieve, and wore the mask of a man trying to keep it together for his children.)

 

but they hold each other on the long nights.

 

they could not help their beloveds, but they will help each other.

 

in time, they will heal. maybe not completely. maybe not forever. but they will heal, lewyn thinks.

 

or perhaps forseti does.

 

lewyn cannot tell, but he knows they aren’t wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> before you ask how leif and nanna work in this context: leif would still be the child of quan and ethlyn. nanna i would consider to be the child of finn and lachesis, but raised by quan, ethlyn, and finn as leif's sister. they're already basically siblings anyway.
> 
> come join the church of jamke/lewyn over at @loamvoza on twitter  
> 


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